We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

Let man then contemplate nature in full and lofty majesty, and turn his eyes away from the mean objects which surround him. Let him look at the dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the starts as they roll their course on high.

All our troubles come from not being able to be alone.

The gospel to me is simply irresistible.

Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.